Guess The Expletive

Jared Kushner in the ‘Times’ edition

Silvia Killingsworth
The Awl
2 min readMay 23, 2017

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Image: Jonathan Rolande

The best game to play in the New York Times is not, as many people might think, the daily crossword puzzle. It’s “guess which swear word the squeamish editors at the Times decided we couldn’t handle.” Today’s puzzle comes in a very good piece of reporting by Alec MacGillis on the “distress-ridden, Class B” apartment complexes owned by Kushner Companies.

Cox stopped cooking for herself and her son, not wanting food near the sink. A judge allowed her reduced rent for one month. When she moved out soon afterward, Westminster Management sent her a $600 invoice for a new carpet and other repairs. Cox, who is now working as a battery-test engineer and about to buy her first home, was unaware who was behind the company that had put her through such an ordeal. When I told her of Kushner’s involvement, there was a silence as she took it in.

“Get that [expletive] out of here,” she said.

“Fucker?” “Motherfucker?” “Asshole?” It has to be a noun, right? One word. “Asshat?” “Fuckface?” “Shithead?” Maybe “dickwad.” Or the less popular “dickweed.” Portmanteau or not? It couldn’t be “son of a bitch” because they print that and it’s a lot of words—the way Cox says it it sounds like it just sort of rolled off the tongue. “Fucko?” You can really pick your own word. I’m going to go with “fucklord.” Choose your own adventure.

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Silvia Killingsworth
The Awl

Editor of The @Awl and @thehairpin. Patron Saint of early bedtimes.